The Finality of Covenant Wrath Text: Revelation 15:1
Introduction: History's Director
We live in an age that is terrified of endings. Our culture is defined by a frantic effort to keep all its options open, to never allow any story to conclude, to deny that any final judgments are ever rendered. We want endless sequels, perpetual adolescence, and moralities that are as fluid as water. But the God of Scripture is a God of endings. He is the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. He writes the story of history, and He determines when each chapter concludes. He is not a nervous author, wringing His hands, wondering how it will all turn out. He is the sovereign director, and His purposes are always brought to a perfect and fitting conclusion.
The book of Revelation, more than any other, is about God's decisive endings. But our frantic and futurist generation has largely misunderstood what is ending. Plagued by a dispensational hangover, many Christians read Revelation with newspaper in one hand and Bible in the other, trying to map out a timeline for the end of the world. They see these plagues as something to be dropped on a future antichrist, somewhere in a revived Roman empire, after the church has been secretly vacuumed out of the world. But this is to miss the entire covenantal context of the book. John tells us plainly that these things must "soon take place" (Rev. 1:1). This is not about the end of the space-time continuum; it is about the end of an age. It is about the final, catastrophic, and glorious conclusion to God's long covenantal lawsuit against apostate Israel, which culminated in the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70.
In this verse, we are shown a sign in heaven. We are being taken into the control room of history to see the divine decree before it is executed on earth. This is not a random outburst of divine temper. This is the carefully measured, judicially precise, and absolutely final execution of a sentence that was millennia in the making. God is about to finish His business with the old covenant world so that the new covenant kingdom can advance throughout the whole earth, unhindered.
The Text
Then I saw another sign in heaven, great and marvelous, seven angels who have seven plagues, which are the last, because in them the wrath of God is finished.
(Revelation 15:1 LSB)
A Heavenly Sign (v. 1a)
The verse begins with John's perspective:
"Then I saw another sign in heaven, great and marvelous..." (Revelation 15:1a)
John is a seer. He is seeing things from the heavenly perspective, from God's throne room. This is crucial. What looks like chaos on earth, the madness of the Roman-Jewish war, is, from heaven's point of view, a "sign." A sign is not simply a strange event; it is an event that is pregnant with meaning. It points to a theological reality. The sun, moon, and stars are signs (Gen. 1:14). The rainbow is a sign (Gen. 9:12). Circumcision was a sign (Rom. 4:11). What John is seeing is not raw data; it is divine revelation. It is God's commentary on current events.
And this sign is "great and marvelous." These words echo the song of Moses after the exodus, when the Israelites celebrated God's great and marvelous works in judging Egypt and delivering His people (Ex. 15:11). The use of this language here is a deliberate, clanging bell. John is telling us that a new exodus is underway. God is about to judge the new Egypt, which is apostate Jerusalem, the city that had become "Sodom and Egypt, where also their Lord was crucified" (Rev. 11:8). And He is about to deliver His new covenant people, the church of Jesus Christ, from their persecutors. This is not a horror show; it is a display of God's awesome, covenant-keeping justice.
The Agents of Completion (v. 1b)
Next, we see the instruments of this judgment.
"...seven angels who have seven plagues..." (Revelation 15:1b)
The number seven is stamped all over the book of Revelation, and it is the biblical number of completion, perfection, and covenant. It is the number of God's finished work. Just as God created the world in seven days, He is now bringing this work of judgment to its perfect and complete conclusion. This is not a partial or haphazard affair. It is a thorough and finished work.
The judgment is administered by angels. These are God's messengers, His agents, dispatched from His immediate presence. This tells us that the coming destruction is not an accident of history or the result of purely political forces. It is a direct, holy, and righteous act of God. The plagues do not bubble up from hell; they are handed down from heaven. God is in absolute control. The angels are the executors of His will, bringing His decreed sentence to bear upon a rebellious and hard-hearted generation.
And they have seven "plagues." Again, the exodus imagery is unmistakable. These are the covenant curses promised in the Law of Moses for profound covenant infidelity (Lev. 26; Deut. 28). God warned Israel from the beginning that if they broke His covenant, He would bring escalating judgments upon them, culminating in total destruction. They had broken the covenant in the most egregious way possible: they had murdered the Son, the heir of the vineyard. These seven last plagues are the final, terrifying fulfillment of those very covenant curses. This is God keeping His word, both the promises of blessing for obedience and the warnings of curses for rebellion.
The Last and the Finished (v. 1c)
The final part of the verse gives us the scope and finality of this action.
"...which are the last, because in them the wrath of God is finished." (Revelation 15:1c)
Here is the interpretive key. These plagues are "the last." This does not mean they are the last plagues in all of human history until the final judgment. That would make John's assurance that these events were "near" a lie. Rather, they are the last in this series of judgments. They are the climax of the covenantal lawsuit against Jerusalem. They are the final act in the drama of the old covenant age. With the destruction of the Temple, the entire sacrificial system, the priesthood, and the ceremonial law would be brought to a crashing and visible halt. The scaffolding of the old covenant was being torn down because the building of the new covenant, the church, was now established.
Why are they the last? "Because in them the wrath of God is finished." The word for "finished" here is the Greek etelesthe, which should ring a bell for every Christian. It is the same root word that Jesus cried from the cross: tetelestai, "It is finished" (John 19:30). On the cross, the work of redemption was finished. The wrath of God against the sins of His people was fully absorbed and satisfied. Here, in A.D. 70, the judicial wrath of God against the apostate nation that rejected that finished work is now, itself, being finished. This is the final settlement of accounts. God's patience has run its course, and the judgment promised for centuries is now complete.
This is the wrath of the covenant. It is God's settled and holy opposition to those who trample underfoot the blood of His Son. This is not the petulant anger of a pagan deity, but the righteous judgment of a holy God whose covenant has been spurned. With this final outpouring, God's case against the Christ-rejecting, church-persecuting system headquartered in Jerusalem is closed. The city falls, the temple is gone, and the gospel is fully unleashed to go to the nations, just as Jesus said it would (Matt. 24:14).
Conclusion: The Vindication of the King
So what does a sign in heaven from the first century have to do with us? Everything. It teaches us that God is the Lord of history. He does not merely observe it; He directs it. It teaches us that God takes His covenants with ultimate seriousness. He keeps His promises, all of them. And it teaches us that God's justice is perfect and final. He will not be mocked.
The fall of Jerusalem was the great vindication of Jesus Christ. He had prophesied it in detail, and it happened just as He said. It demonstrated to the entire world that He was King, and that the old way of approaching God was now defunct. The sign of these seven last plagues was a declaration of the victory of the Lamb and His people.
We can therefore look at the turmoil in our own day, not with fear and trembling, but with a robust confidence. The same God who finished His wrath against the old covenant persecutors is the God who is now overseeing the triumphant march of His kingdom through history. He has judged His enemies before, and He will do so again. All those who set themselves against Christ and His church are picking a fight with the one who directs angels and unleashes plagues. It is a fight they cannot win. Our task is not to cower, waiting for a secret rapture. Our task is to be faithful, knowing that the story has already been written, and it ends with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord covering the earth as the waters cover the sea.